Fairmount Line Upgrade

Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

The EGE said:
That Islington ridership is a false report, I suspect, based on previous years. Someone at the T swapped the Hyde Park and Islington numbers (probably because they'd be adjacent in an alphabetical table). It's more like 200 a day. But that doesn't affect the meat of your argument - it still might be the best no-parking station on the system.
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The MPO's count of commuter rail from a couple of years ago found only 87 boardings at Islington

http://www.ctps.org/Drupal/data/pdf...BTA_Commuter_Rail_Passenger_Count_Results.pdf

The Foxboro commuter rail study from a few years ago:
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/A...er Rail Report (01-Sept-10) - REPORT ONLY.pdf

estimated there would be 990 boardings at Foxboro in 2030, under "Option C" which called for extending 32 Fairmount Line trains to Foxboro. If they are only proposing to run 8 round-trips as quoted by the Foxborough official in the article, the ridership estimate would be a lot lower. Note that under the Fairmount Line scenario in the report, Foxboro trains would not make a stop at Walpole.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

winstonoboogie said:
I could see a service plan where pairs or triplets of DMUs are lashed up to do a run into the city from Foxboro via Fairmount in the morning, are broken up at South Station to do late A.M. and midday runs Readville-Boston with two or three car sets, and then are coupled back together in the evening for the runs back to Foxboro where they will sleep. Eight round-trips are not a lot of trips (as a comparison, Needham has 16 round-trips).
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State revealed draft Foxborough extension plans to Foxborough officials:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...tte-stadium/u4levr83x9Y27EJ4uAD50L/story.html

Proposal now is to extend five Fairmount trains from Readville to Foxborough, 2 AM round-trips, 1 midday, and 2 PM. Trains would run express from Foxborough to Readville.

Not mentioned in article, but someone I know who attended the meeting said it was also put out there that Kraft is also willing to transfer 5 acres of land to MassDOT/MBTA to build a light maintenance facility for DMUs in Foxborough. If that is the case, then it looks like MBTA gets free land for a DMU facility in exchange for running a small number of trips per day to Foxborough.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

Foxboro will never operate on DMU's.

This service starts earlier than the DMU order relying on a Cape Flyer-esque rollout of modestly upgraded unsignalized slow track, express trains instead of locals to make the travel times tolerable, and a schedule that stays under the limit you can get a PTC exemption for to operate in dark territory. DMU's will still be a stack of collected RFP papers when the first push-pulls pulls into Patriot Place on that first Monday morning. This is what the locals proposed a couple years ago to get their foot in the door...a trial templated after Cape Flyer Year 1 to get it going sooner and make the real-deal service self-evident to fund.

When the infill upgrades get it up to signals + 60 MPH track those expresses become locals. Because Franklin trains already overstuff 6 cars with the boarders at Walpole, Norwood, and Dedham Corporate and need more trains there. And the feasibility study still got the schedule into Boston in under an hour making all stops. Not only is that service need going to end the expresses the second the track is up-to-snuff, but there is no way in hell they are tying up one half of the 30-car systemwide DMU fleet on the Foxboro rush hour shift alone. That would be stretching credulity so far to preserve the illusion that they aren't really backing running away from Indigo service levels on Fairmount because ¡shiny vehicles! that they'd get pasted for it in every media outlet and town meeting throughout the district. They aren't that stupid.


Land swap = standard layover yard. Which was part of the Foxboro feasibility study all along. There is no vehicle-specific qualifier attached to that, and any DMU qualification to the contrary--right now in 2014--is just them dodging the persistent questioning about whether Fairmount will ever get the promised headways by keeping the "the vehicle IS the service" illusion going for a few more months. Kraft wants transit riders at his development; he's not going to fine-print a DMU maintenance facility as a requirement of that because it puts him further away from getting paying daily transit riders spending money at Patriot Place and his parking lots. The 2024 map has northside Indigo lines. Why would anyone in their right mind make Foxboro the home base for vehicle maint for a fleet that turns inside 128 and is too small to stray that far from home base? That's what new Beacon Park and Readville are for.


This is good that they're templating Cape Flyer, though. Those filled push-pull coaches that'll be pulling in there on the limited schedule will mobilize the money to the full-build job for 16 all-stops round trips daily specced in the feasibility study much sooner than it ever would've otherwise. And then Walpole, Norwood, and Dedham will really reap the spoils stuffing that doubled-up schedule of push-pulls full. Vehicular signal-to-noise notwithstanding, this is a good thing.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

"Trolley-like?"

Do the magic pixie dust vehicles that apparently will run everywhere except once every 15 minutes in the urban core also time-travel from the year 2021 to the year 2016 for the start of this service....eh MassDOT flak who apparently knows as litttle about procurement cycles as he does commuter rail logistics?


I really hope these top-down talking points exit office when Patrick does. Pro-transit is good and all, but this is becoming like the internal monologue of somebody who just stayed up for 36 hours straight watching their worn-out VHS collection of Supertrain: The Complete Series.

supertrain_020779_ad.jpg



Spokesflak: "It's like the Love Boat, but in trolley-like form!"

Harried commuter: "Will it get me to work on-time?"

Spokesflak: "Peter Lawford and Charo guest star!!!"

Commuter: "You didn't answer my question."

Spokesflak: "Just wait for the special Hart-to-Hart crossover episode during Sweeps Week!"

Commuter: "I'll take that as a no."
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

It is certainly possible that the incoming administration might have little interest in proceeding with the DMU procurement and/or any full time service to Foxborough.

However, the facts remain that at the moment:
-The MBTA is moving forward with a 30-car DMU procurement. A very detailed draft RFP has been put out for industry comment and they expect to put out a final RFP for proposals by the end of the year, with an aggressive delivery schedule of three years from notice to proceed.
-The MBTA has stated that the primary use of these 30 cars would be on the Fairmount Line
-MassDOT officials, at a public meeting with elected officials have stated that the proposed Foxborough service would be operated as an extension of the Fairmount Line and would be operated with the equipment planned for the line. They have even stated that a DMU maintenance facility is proposed for construction in Foxborough

Looking at the draft specs for the DMU, the proposal is for 10 3-car sets. The cars would be configured to only board from high-level platforms, however the center "C-car" would be restroom equipped, suggesting they would still be suitable for operating on a service with trips more than 30 minutes long.

The proposed Foxborough service would operate express from Foxborough to Readville, conveniently by-passing stops that could not accommodate equipment that can only board from high-platforms.

Since all of these improvements are proposed before South Station expansion would be in place, capacity constraints would dictate that Foxborough and Fairmount services be operated as a combined service in the peak.

It would be physically possible to operate improved Fairmount frequencies with conventional push-pull equipment, but the theoretical advantage for DMUs would be to make the service more economical to operate, especially in the off-peak. The fuel savings of a three-car DMU compared to a five or six car push-pull set would be considerable. The draft specs for the DMU's call for them to be configured to operate with a two-person crew (one engineer and one conductor), for a possible labor savings on short off-peak trains operating high-frequency service, but with lower loads per train. At the same time, the spec calls for the DMUs to be capable of operating in a six-car train (two triplets coupled together). As I pointed out before, a theoretical operating plan could be to operate a six-car train from Foxborough to Boston, split the train at South Station to then have three-car sets to operate midday frequency at 15-minute headways on Fairmount, and then put the sets back together again in the PM to operate a six-car train back to Foxborough.

Of course there is a high capital cost to DMUs, but operating and capital money come from different pots. Spending $200 million in capital now to get an $x million savings in operating costs per year for the next 25-30 years is not an unreasonable strategy for a public agency. There is however an uncertainty with maintenance costs. If the costs to maintain the DMUs are greater than anticipated, it could wipe out some or even all of the potential savings from fuel and labor. But that is one reason why they are only looking at getting 30 cars for now, as a trial on Fairmount (with a possible extension to Foxborough)
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

The question is, are they kneecapping potential northside DMU growth by building the DMU maintenance facility in Foxboro? The growth corridors for DMU are out of North Station, not South Station.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

I don't doubt the DMU's are real. They just are completely inappropriate for Foxboro service that:

-- Will already be running on this Cape Flyer-esque slow track step-up years before it is physically possible for the first production vehicle to arrive on-property. This starts push-pull.

-- Will turn into a local train with mainline stops phased into the schedule when the infrastructure is stepped up. Rush hour Franklin trains are overstuffed and Franklin layover prevents that end-to-end schedule from being expanded. The Foxboro scale-up has to serve Dedham, the Norwoods, and (when they figure out the tricky platform constraints) Walpole. The demand for extra frequencies is too great, and this uncaps the service ceiling there to double the trains. That's the bigger fare recovery payday than Foxboro itself, especially in Norwood. And there is no way a DMU with 2x2 seating will swallow those rush hour crowds. It's 5-6 car bi-levels or throw away gate receipts tacking extra cars on DMU's never configured for the purpose of substituting a 495 crowd-swallower.

-- Pulls a very small fleet far out of town to the point where it's too thinly spread to cover all the lines on the 2024 map. If you have to run multi-car DMU's to Patriot Place all day--much less ridiculously try to maintain them at a shop out there--forget about Lynn, the Grand Junction, or even Riverside. More downtime for shift changes 20+ miles out of town instead of at the terminal. And more weekly downtime in the fueling line. It's 32 trains per day on the F'boro full build that they are miming to the Buzzards Bay CR template for expediting in-progress. This isn't 5 expresses forever...it's a five-year plan to take it from 5 expresses to 32 locals.



This is a continuation of the giant backpedal from talking in any way, shape, or form about the service levels on the 2024 map. It's vehicles and stations, vehicles and stations. The headways were supposed to justify the vehicles. Now there are outright dodges on what actually will be stopping at West station and when, and whether Fairmount will get anything beyond what the stepped-out--and wholly suburban-oriented--Foxboro schedule ultimately bears.

The vehicle doesn't matter until the service it's catered to matters. Multi-door, 2x2 seating vehicles only matter when the train is frequent enough to make inter-stop quick trips palatable. If everyone is still checking their paper schedules for the train that only arrives twice an hour at different times each hour, they ride it like every commuter rail rider does: butt planted in seat from home stop to CBD terminal. 3x2 seats, bi-levels, and vestibules are fine until people have to start getting up mid-trip like they do on a bus or subway car. They don't do that without reliably timed critical-mass frequencies; they take the same old bus to Forest Hills or Mattapan instead.

That's the paydirt niche for DMU's. Not the acceleration, not the modularity. Schedules that run all-day frequently enough for the optimized features to add a little convenience to the top and shave a little bit of per-trip costs on the off-peak. If they don't run frequently enough for the streamlined loading to matter, and don't have enough of an off-peak schedule for the operating savings to matter...they're a drain not a value-added. If what's left of "Indigo" service has been whittled down to the point where they have to rationalize Foxboro --a route that will start as push-pull where a fleet changeover a few years later to DMU's erodes margins to the point where they'd be absolute pigs to operate at peak load--to justify proceeding with the purchase...then Baker's new transportation staff TBD would be well-advised to throw the RFP in a file cabinet, clean house, and regroup for a number of years before pulling it back out of the cabinet.


Equipment purchases are a casual bystander here. It's the dissolution of the plan for 'rapid transit-like' frequencies inside 128 that needs some serious regrouping and self-reflection. The public isn't buying the ¡vehicles ARE the service! hype. They want the frequencies. The state has been hounded about the frequencies in Pike/West Station meeting. MetroWest legislators are already telling them to pipe down about new Allston stations until they can answer how they plan to stabilize baseline Worcester service. This testy Foxboro meeting last night didn't exactly respond well to the toothless "trolley-like" PR when all the concern was all about poor communication and the slapdash way the proposal seemed to be thrown together at the last minute.

The public's lost its patience for this shiny-things narrative and are asking tough questions about service levels and ability to deliver intended service levels. This week's abysmal quarterly performance report for Keolis and the dumb-luck rash of equipment failures the last couple weeks cement that. The fact they've seemingly got no other narrative to present other than repeating "but it'll be just like a trolley!" over and over again as answer to questions no one is asking is proof that this is nearing the end of its rope. The messaging is broken and needs to get taken offline for a good several months for major internal retooling. Whether Baker & Co. plan to make any adjustments to the actual plans or not, it's got to be painfully aware to their transition team has to realize that this PR apparatus is broken beyond repair and the outreach is starting to antagonize riders more than encourage.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

Would the DMU's ever be able to enter the N-S rail link if that is built. I see the utility of having North Shore and South Shore commuter rails being able to run to the two main stations, but i think the DMU's being able to do continuing throughput service from the North and South side woudl be even more valuable. But is this possible with how the track will lay out?
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

DMU's can run anywhere the PushPulls can, so there won't be any issue in the N/S Link.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

^I am thinking more of the track configuration and tunnel entry points. Like can a Lynn DMU through run to Fairmont? Can a Lowell one loop through and go out to the North Station, South Station, Back Bay and the Newton stops. Or is that bend not possible with where the trains would have to enter and exit the N-S Link?
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

AFAIK, the only issue is how many of the current CR lines they route through the tunnel. If they do all of them, there's no limitation. That might get priced out though by the time we get to shovels in the ground. I don't believe engineering is the problem though, just money.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

choo said:
^I am thinking more of the track configuration and tunnel entry points. Like can a Lynn DMU through run to Fairmont? Can a Lowell one loop through and go out to the North Station, South Station, Back Bay and the Newton stops. Or is that bend not possible with where the trains would have to enter and exit the N-S Link?
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Certain commuter rail lines would be far more cost-prohibitive/disruptive to include in the North-South Rail Link. If I recall correctly, the Fairmount Line was one of the most costly and disruptive to link up to the tunnel due to the approaches. The project originally died due, in part, to trying to throw everything in and it became a boondoggle. When we were discussing it earlier there were two, clear sides to the debate:

1. You only get one shot to build it, so you should include everything. It is critical to have the flexibility of having all lines hooked up to the tunnel, and even though Fairmount is challenge, there is a lot to gain by through-routing Fairmount/Indigo runs.

2. Due to the incredible costs associated with it, the only way anything gets built is if a minimum build is completed. That way the Lowell Line and the Northeast Corridor can be hooked up and that gives you much of the through-routing Commuter Rail needs and all of the Intercity through-routing needs.

Whichever lines have portals to the link can send trains through to any lines on the other side with portals to the link. Its a matter of which lines are included in the project.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

bigeman312 said:
Certain commuter rail lines would be far more cost-prohibitive/disruptive to include in the North-South Rail Link. If I recall correctly, the Fairmount Line was one of the most costly and disruptive to link up to the tunnel due to the approaches. The project originally died due, in part, to trying to throw everything in and it became a boondoggle. When we were discussing it earlier there were two, clear sides to the debate:

1. You only get one shot to build it, so you should include everything. It is critical to have the flexibility of having all lines hooked up to the tunnel, and even though Fairmount is challenge, there is a lot to gain by through-routing Fairmount/Indigo runs.

2. Due to the incredible costs associated with it, the only way anything gets built is if a minimum build is completed. That way the Lowell Line and the Northeast Corridor can be hooked up and that gives you much of the through-routing Commuter Rail needs and all of the Intercity through-routing needs.

Whichever lines have portals to the link can send trains through to any lines on the other side with portals to the link. Its a matter of which lines are included in the project.
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What I do not understand is why rail tunneling (in general), and the N/S link in particular is so ridiculously expensive in Boston.

Someone needs to study what London is doing with the Crossrail Project (a sort of N/S link on steroids, but it runs E/W). 21 km of new tunneling though central London, multiple portals at each end, a Thames river crossing, and numerous new stations -- cost about $1 bn per km. (Total project is about 15 bn pounds sterling.)

The UK is an expensive place for construction work. Fully unionized. Subsurface geology in London is a lot like Boston (glacial till, "London clay")...

The MBTA would project at least double that amount, and then still not budget for stations!
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

BussesAin'tTrains said:
The question is, are they kneecapping potential northside DMU growth by building the DMU maintenance facility in Foxboro? The growth corridors for DMU are out of North Station, not South Station.
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The 30 DMUs are for Fairmount and thus need a facility on or near the Fairmount Line. Track constraints at South Station mean Fairmount service and Foxborough service are one and the same (if Foxborough happens at all). If Fairmount gets DMUs, then so does Foxborough, and if Foxborough is an extension of the Fairmount Line, then a DMU light maintenance facility at Foxborough would be on the Fairmount Line.

Any use of DMUs on any service beyond Fairmount, with the possible exception of Lynn-Boston service, is probably going to wait for the next DMU order if the first order is considered a success.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

winstonoboogie said:
The 30 DMUs are for Fairmount and thus need a facility on or near the Fairmount Line. Track constraints at South Station mean Fairmount service and Foxborough service are one and the same (if Foxborough happens at all). If Fairmount gets DMUs, then so does Foxborough, and if Foxborough is an extension of the Fairmount Line, then a DMU light maintenance facility at Foxborough would be on the Fairmount Line.

Any use of DMUs on any service beyond Fairmount, with the possible exception of Lynn-Boston service, is probably going to wait for the next DMU order if the first order is considered a success.
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Ok, but when that happens it makes more sense to have a single centrally-located facility, as opposed to building another one somewhere else (Beacon Park, BET, or Riverside).
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

Equilibria said:
Ok, but when that happens it makes more sense to have a single centrally-located facility, as opposed to building another one somewhere else (Beacon Park, BET, or Riverside).
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Remember they are only talking about a light maintenance facility, someplace set up to better deal with underfloor engines and roof mounted equipment. Heavy maintenance is still going to be done at BET, and if considered a success, BET will probably need modifications to better service DMUs.

You could conversely ask, what happens if they turn out to be far more expensive to operate than anticipated and it just makes sense to run out their final years on an isolated line or even sell them off at an early date. Fairmount is the guinea pig, if they work well, then it might be time to consider larger more centralized facilities.

Passenger service on Grand Junction is not going to happen any time soon, so any initial use on the north side for Boston-Lynn will potentially require mods to BET.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

underground said:
DMU's can run anywhere the PushPulls can, so there won't be any issue in the N/S Link.
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Neither push-pulls nor DMUs will run in the N/S link for two reasons, (a) because the Link will probably not be constructed for decades and (b) when it does, no diesel engines will be permitted to operate inside the tunnels.

JeffDowntown said:
What I do not understand is why rail tunneling (in general), and the N/S link in particular is so ridiculously expensive in Boston.

Someone needs to study what London is doing with the Crossrail Project (a sort of N/S link on steroids, but it runs E/W). 21 km of new tunneling though central London, multiple portals at each end, a Thames river crossing, and numerous new stations -- cost about $1 bn per km. (Total project is about 15 bn pounds sterling.)
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I don't know why this keeps popping up but $1 billion/km is NOT cheap, and Crossrail is probably the most overpriced project outside of ... NYC. Of course there are some reasonable excuses due to local conditions but still... Barcelona is no slouch in the "historic city" department and yet the Spanish are managing to construct the brand new 100% automated mostly underground 47.8 km-long L9/10 subway for about $170 million / km.

The real question is why United States construction costs are so wacky and out of proportion to other first-world developed nations. And the British ought to be asking the same question of their own projects.
 
Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade

Matthew said:
The real question is why United States construction costs are so wacky and out of proportion to other first-world developed nations. And the British ought to be asking the same question of their own projects.
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Because the Spanish are in a recession and we aren't?
 
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